


Gone, Baby, Gone

by Beltenebra



Category: Dollhouse, Johnny's Entertainment, NewS (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dollhouse Fusion, Angst, Dark, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Non-Linear Narrative, Psychological Trauma, brief mentions of sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 14:13:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8404726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beltenebra/pseuds/Beltenebra
Summary: Shige, finds, and struggles to hold on to the love of his life, his sanity, and his integrity.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is written loosely in the universe of a show called _The Dollhouse_ which is just downright amazing. You can find a general summary [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollhouse_%28TV_series%29).

The first time Shige saw him in Tokyo he thinks he must be hallucinating. He only caught a glimpse of a lean figure turning the corner from one crowded street to another, just a flash of caramel hair curling down over a shirt collar in a way that Shige could never forget. His heart jolted and he sprinted forward just in time to see the person climbing into a sleek, unmarked black van. He stood there, throat choked with disappointment, telling himself that it couldn't have been. He gave up hoping to see that person years ago. He was gone. 

It couldn't have been Koyama, but Shige's pounding heart refused to believe it. 

\---

Shige _could_ remember a time when he hadn't been in love with his best friend. Though the memories of the events were clear - family vacations, soccer practices, and birthdays - they always seemed hazed over, like he was seeing them through a filter, like they belonged to someone else. Koyama moved in next door to him when he was thirteen. Koyama with his sunny smile and gangly limbs and goofy laugh. Although he didn't recognize it for the first few years, Shige was pretty sure it was love at first sight. The first time Koyama's lips curved up and he introduced himself with immediate familiarity, _We're neighbors now. We should be friends too, don't you think, Shige?_ , he was lost. 

Neither of them dated much. Shige was a bit shy and private but people probably wondered about Koyama. He was extremely well-liked among everyone at their high school, he could have had his pick of sweethearts. He accepted everyone's friendship but no one's affections, unknowingly fueling Shige's hopes. 

They had been inseparable for the two years up to Koyama's graduation. When he left Osaka behind and moved to Tokyo for college even then they talked constantly, trading phone calls and text messages. Shige would send care packages with fond notes reminding Koyama that he was an idiot and he needed to take care of himself because Shige wasn't around to do it for him. 

_Because I need you to keep being yourself… because I love you._

He never said it. Not after years of comfortable embraces, of sun drenched afternoons filled with rambling conversation, countless nights of lying right there so close watching Koyama's chest rise and fall, memorizing the shape of his lips in the moonlight. Shige never mentioned, never even hinted that he was head over heels for his friend. He never said it but he silently kept count of all of the times when he could have. 

\---

He was a lucky young man, that's what people told him all the time. He had gone to very good school with an excellent law program. He graduated at the top of his class, gotten a good job on the internal legal staff of a small bio-tech company, and a year later when the company went public he (along with everyone else at the company right down to the janitorial staff) found himself an overnight millionaire. He didn't have to keep working, but he did. He didn't have any hobbies besides photography, unless you counted his lingering obsession with Koyama, and there were very few people he spent time with. 

He was glad he did because if he hadn't been at that particularly boring cocktail party, talking to some particularly bored overly moneyed clients, he never would have heard about the Dollhouse. 

"Seriously, anything you want. Anything you could imagine needing. Like special skills, specific knowledge, background, _anything_." 

Shige tried to keep most of the incredulity out of his tone. "How do they do that? That kind of technology doesn't exist, you can't just _program_ people." 

Tanaka just smirked, comfortable in his perceived superiority. "That's what 99.99% of the population is supposed to believe, Kato-kun. But members of the elite, the upper echelons of society, have access to truths most people couldn't imagine." 

"Suppose it were possible, what kind of person would volunteer for something like that?" 

The older man leaned in and murmured conspiratorially, "The House keeps their information pretty controlled but I hear they pick up people who are running from something, people with personal trauma of some kind. And when they enter the House, it's like they never existed. No records, no pictures, nothing. They're just _gone_." 

Shige's could feel his nails biting into his palms as his hands curled into fists involuntarily, he felt a thrill of terror race down his spine and he knew instinctively that this was important, this was a clue, maybe a break in the long chain of disappointments that was his search for Koyama. 

He kept his voice as casual as possible and feigned awe at Tanaka's wealth of information, "Alright, Tanaka-san… say I take your word for it. I'm young, I'm curious, I have more money than I know what to do with. How do I get in touch with these Dollhouse people?" 

\---

Halfway through his last year of high school Kato Shigeaki's life ended. 

One day he had spent hours on the phone with Koyama laughing and making plans to get an apartment together, the college he would be attending in the spring was close enough to Kei's for them to share. Shige told himself after he hung up the phone that the day he graduated, the day he left home to move in with Koyama, he would tell him. He would _finally_ tell him and they would be together. Like they were always meant to be.  
The next day, Koyama was gone. 

As far as he could figure anyway. He didn't hear from Koyama for a few days and by the time he decided it was the correct time to panic, there was nothing left. Something happened, it must have been something horrible but Shige didn't _know_ because he could find any goddamned information. You would think that some kind of crime would have been reported, that there would have been a witness, a rumor, something, _anything_. 

It was like Koyama had never existed in Tokyo at all. There was no record of him at his college, or at his apartment building. He spent several desperate months commuting back and forth into Tokyo on the weekends desperately searching for some sign that the most important person in his life was still alive, was something more than a vivid figment of his imagination. 

The following year he moved into a small apartment near Koyama's university. He threw himself into his studies, buried his heart deep down beneath the ashes of a love that never had the chance to blossom, but he never really stopped looking. 

\---

"So tell me, Kato-san, what brings you to the Dollhouse?"

Matsumoto's tone was light and conversational but Shige could detect the keen blade of the man's intelligence lurking right below the surface. He did not want this man as an enemy. 

He glanced around Matsumoto's large office. The room was well-appointed and elegantly decorated in blond woods and rice paper screens. One entire wall was dedicated to windows which looked down into the house itself, decorated similarly all elegant lines, lush indoor gardens and lovely pools. If one didn't know better it could easily be mistaken for a very expensive spa.

"I heard… some things about this place, what you can do here, the technology you have access to. I couldn’t quite believe it." Shige kept his own voice on the awed side of hushed, designed to flatter. 

"We don't just have access to the technology here, Kato-san. We've _created_ it, perfected it. But for us it wouldn't exist at all; some of the most brilliant minds in the world work on this project." Matsumoto's smile was smug but instead of inspiring any anger or irritation the way an expression of that nature usually did, it made Shige want to back down, to supplicate himself, anything to make this man share some of the fascinating secrets behind his eyes. The man was downright dangerous but Shige was here for a reason, he didn't mind playing along for now. 

"You can really make me the perfect person? Anything I want?" He let a shade of skepticism leak into his voice in the hope that Matsumoto would elaborate on their process. The man raised one perfect, black brow at him and launched into a more in-depth explanation, expounding on neural pathways and personality mapping, physical ability manipulation and programmable emotional responses. Shige listened attentively, drinking all the information in while Matsumoto pointed out various aspects of the organization from their bird's eye view in his office. 

It was just supposed to be a reconnaissance mission. Just something to get the lay of the land, to give him some idea if this was really the kind of organization that could simply make people disappear, (research thus far indicated that it was the kind of organization that could do whatever it damn well pleased and it would take years for any kind of repercussions to catch up, if they ever did), but a flash of gold caught his eye and he nearly choked on his breath. 

Matsumoto's low and vicious chuckle brought him back to the moment. He didn't bother to try to hide the hot flush creeping across his cheeks, a combination of embarrassment, longing, and rage liberally spiked with lust, because that was _Koyama_ down there goddammit. Koyama, padding gracefully across the polished floor in loose linen pants following a good-looking punk with long hair pulled back in a ponytail. Available for anyone who had enough money, just waiting to be molded into the perfect thief or secret agent or doctor or friend or _date_. Koyama. 

The other man's tone was intensely amused, like he had been waiting for this moment, like he was positive that Shige was going to beg him to spin his dreams into reality. "See something you like, Kato-san?" 

Shige had to clear his throat a few times to speak properly. He didn’t give a damn how desperate he seemed to Matsumoto, he rushed headlong past all of his reservations and the screaming voice in the back of his head that protested _this is so very wrong_. "You can set up any scenario I want?" He didn't turn to see Matsumoto's nod; he couldn't risk taking his eyes off Koyama's slim form, he was terrified that the second he looked away the other man would fade away, would become the mirage he had been chasing for years. He raised one hand to the glass, less than a hundred yards away. So close. _So far_ "I want that one." 

\---

True to his word, Matsumoto gave him the perfect weekend with the man of his dreams. Shige's request detailed someone as close to Koyama as he could get without it seeming suspicious. Presumably the people in the house knew what Koyama was like when they brought him in but Shige had no way of knowing how aware they were of his background, his history before he came to Tokyo. He was certain that if they found out that he _knew_ Koyama he would be in danger of disappearing as well, in a much more permanent fashion. 

He should be more ashamed of himself. He was, to a certain extent of course, but not enough to stop. His first request was fairly innocent, close to the truth while being generic enough not to arouse suspicion: a chance meeting between old school friends who hadn't seen each other in a while, a sudden emotional re-connection and a whirlwind weekend of soft smiles and curious glances. 

When their time together was drawing to a close, Koyama leaned in to press a kiss to his lips. Shige realized exactly why people would be willing to pay untold millions of yen if this was what it felt like to have your dreams come true. The heady sweetness of Koyama's mouth and the dazzling brilliance of his smile afterward was almost enough to chase away the bitterness of Shige's knowledge that this isn't real, it's fake, _manufactured_ , that as soon as he was led back into that medical chamber Shige would cease to exist. Almost. 

Now that he knew where Koyama was, he couldn't stay away. Further visits revealed that they could keep the person they had created for him on file, save him so that Shige could build a relationship with him if he decided to book further engagements, for the right price of course. 

It was sick, he knew. He was taking advantage of Koyama and torturing himself. He knew all of this. Sometimes he wished that he hadn't stumbled across the Dollhouse, that he hadn't been offered the option, the temptation. But he remembered his years of ignorance, waking up each day not knowing, believing that Koyama was dead. Maybe he had simply replaced the hollow feeling of general dread with gnawing sense guilt but it was better this way. 

He couldn't even let himself begin to think about what Koyama was doing when they weren't together. Who he might be with, the countless ways he might be used. His vision would go red-hazed and he could barely suppress the urge to scream. Early on he wondered if he should be trying to save Koyama. He didn't have a clue where to start. Or if Koyama wanted saving. He just tried to spend as much time with him as possible. He knew he was no better than any other client. He wasn't pure-hearted, he wasn't some knight in shining armor. But he did love Koyama, the real Koyama. Maybe that counted for something, a single white feather counterbalanced against the weight of his sins. 

He turned these arguments over and over in his head. Especially on the nights he got to spend with Koyama. _Too few nights, never enough time._ He would lay awake just listening to Koyama breathe, reveling the feeling of the other man in his arms, even if he hated the method he needed to use to get him there. 

A soft sleepy murmur snapped him out of this evening's cycle of personal recrimination. He didn't trust himself to make up a believable excuse, he tried not to lie to Koyama even though he knew it didn't make a damn bit of difference when their entire acquaintance was fabricated. He tried, clinging to the hope that somewhere under the layers of illusion, under the software and the electrical impulses that Koyama, _his Koyama_ was still in there. 

"I love you so much, Kei. So damned much."

Koyama's answer was immediate, soft with affection but tinged with concern, "Shige, you know I love you too. Why do you always say that in such a fierce voice?" 

His fingers trembled but they were buried in Koyama's hair, hopefully he wouldn't notice. He pressed a gentle kiss to the soft crown of Koyama's head, keeping him from looking up, from seeing Shige's face. He screwed his eyes shut against the hot, sudden tears that slipped down his cheeks. He took a deep breath and forced his voice into some semblance of light-hearted calm, "I just don't want you to forget. That's all." 

\---

He found out Koyama's contract was up when he literally ran into him on the street. Walking into a supermarket to be precise. Koyama was clutching a bag that seemed full to overflowing with pantry staples: bags of rice and flour and sugar, milk, coffee, bottles of vinegar and soy sauce. Shige's apology sputtered out half-formed as he flicked his eyes to the side, surreptitiously checking for a client or the man he knew to be Koyama's handler. 

Koyama blushed and stammered, "Shige, I can't believe it! It's been so long." 

He didn't bother to hide his shock, "You remember me?" 

"Of course I do! How could I possibly forget my best friend?" Koyama's tone was so endearingly familiar, warm and irritated. 

Shige's heart contracted painfully. He shoved his hands in his pockets and tried to contain the thrill of euphoria and fear because this was it. This was what he had been waiting for, dreaming of, Koyama was really here with him and if he screwed this up he would never forgive himself. 

He forced his lips into a small, amused smile. "You always had an incredible knack for forgetting even the most important things… keys, cell phone, rail card." 

Koyama blushed and Shige had to clench his hand shut to keep from tracing the line of flushed skin with his fingertips. The taller man's eyes were dark and unreadable. Shige savored the foreign feeling of not knowing what Koyama was thinking. This was the real Koyama; they were both off the script now. "Yeah, well… that's why I always had you around. To keep track of those things for me. Should we move? We must be blocking the entrance." 

He fell into step with Koyama, shoulder-to-shoulder and the years melted away, like no time at all had passed. They made their way over to a sort of ledge overlooking a park, leaned on the railing, gazing out over the budding trees in the slowly gathering twilight. 

They both turned at the same time, mouths open to say something, stopped, laughed, and fell silent again. They stood there for a few moments just staring at each other; it may have been seconds or minutes, Shige didn't know, he was too busy drinking in the sensation of Koyama really being here. Standing here and talking to him of his own volition. 

Koyama's expression was thoughtful, tinged with sadness. When he did speak again, he sounded apologetic, almost lost. "I was… away. For a while. Some things happened and I had the opportunity to take a sort of internship out of town. I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

Shige looked up at him and Koyama flinched just a little, like he expected Shige to yell or hit him. He just shook his head a bit and reached out to pull Koyama close. The taller man didn't resist, in fact he immediately wrapped strong arms around Shige's waist, dropped his head down to Shige's shoulder. They clung to each other for a few moments before Shige spoke low and raw, "I missed you, Kei." 

Koyama burst into tears and Shige couldn't help but laugh, pulling away just enough to swipe a gentle thumb under one of Koyama's eyes, "Still the same old Koyama." 

\---

They seemed to be making up for lost time, spending every possible moment together. Shige still had enough funds that he could quit his current job, he decided to spend some of his time doing pro bono work with the local government. Koyama didn't elaborate but he told Shige that he was financially comfortable enough not to worry about working, pretty much ever. Shige didn't pry, but assumed that the Dollhouse provided quite well for its former employees.

Slowly they rebuilt their friendship. Koyama still edged around the five year hole in his life, skirting the subject like a bruise. Shige never hinted about his knowledge of the Dollhouse. Although he frequently wondered if it showed in his eyes, all of the things he wasn't supposed to know… the breathy moans Koyama made when he licked across his chest, the low keening sound he couldn't seem to hold back when his cock was being sucked, the ticklish spot just behind his knee, the way he worried his lower lip with his teeth just before he came. All of that forbidden knowledge, all gained by cheating the system, hacking his way into Koyama's heart. But maybe that wasn't Koyama at all. Just the closest approximation the Dollhouse could make. He would just have to start over, do it the right way. 

He was very careful not to push his feelings on Koyama but he wasn't taking chances this time around, making it clear that he was crazy about Koyama and letting the other man decide how to proceed. One interminable week after his straightforward but earnest confession Koyama tipped his chin up for their first kiss, the first one that counted as far as Shige was concerned. It was soft and hesitant, they were both trembling and gasping a little for breath. It was the most perfect damn thing and Shige swore he could feel a few of the hundreds of small wounds in his heart start to heal. 

They were comfortable here if precariously balanced. Maybe someday they would breach that chasm, go over into full disclosure. He couldn't deny that the thought of what might have driven Koyama to the Dollhouse in the first place sometimes pulled him out of a sound sleep with night terrors. And he lived on the edge of panic, imagining Koyama's reaction when Shige tells him what he knows, what he did. 

Every so often Koyama will mention something they did together, a conversation, a trip they took and he'll fix Shige with a look like he is waiting for Shige to tell him whether it was real or that he is misremembering. In those moments Shige is sure that Koyama knows exactly what he is hiding and that their whole carefully constructed world is going to come crashing down around him. He'll lose Koyama again and this time he will be gone forever. But Koyama just purses his lips thoughtfully and lets the moment pass with a sunny smile and Shige can breathe again. 

He's not naïve enough to honestly think that they can truly start fresh, that they can leave all of the shadows and pitfalls and unanswered questions buried in the past, but sometimes, just for a little while, he lets himself believe.


End file.
